The Newton Boys

A struggling family rambunctiously lives off the wild beaten track in the candlelit country, 4 boys with 2 in prison their mom understanding yet still withdrawn.

One of the more ambitious siblings finds himself released one fortuitous day, and makes his way home where he collegially meets two other businesspeople engrossed in scheming. 

They soon a rob a bank thinking the sheriff won't seek them out if they give him a cut, two of them escaping to trade in their loot with a corrupt bank manager in another small town. 

The manager gives them a coveted list of sought after banks with particular safes, which one of them happens to be an expert in cracking, fluidly at ease with ye olde nitroglycerine. 

Things go well, they come up with a plan to only rob banks at night and avoid confrontation, the other brothers, The Newton Boys, soon freely enlisting in the lucrative cause.

Bank insurance is a recent phenomenon so they don't feel guilty for heuristically heisting.

Emphatically engaged with calamitous caution.

Even making their way to Canada.

The ingenious idea to proceed at nighttime to avoid gruesome bloodshed wins hearts and minds, and likely convinced concerned officials that they weren't quite as ruthless as they may have seemed.

It's a tightly-knit bunch habitual disputes between grouchy brothers largely absent, the 4 getting along rather well and even risking everything when one of them's injured.

I suppose that's the cuneiform key form a trusted group and take care of one another, never forget pressing mutual interests nor lose sight of collective goals.

Steer clear of the big score as well they were exceptionally dealing with obscure transactions. 

In search of millions they decisively falter.

Tantalizing fever pitch emboldenment. 

Cool soundtrack if you like lucid banjos and panachy pianos from a different time.

One of them even makes it to 90.

Not freakin' bad.

For such a rough life.

Where'd You Go, Bernadette?

Crushed by a devastating thoughtless blow, a brilliant artist can no longer create, and although she finds solace in her loving daughter, and aloof husband, her interactions with neighbours and local professionals perspire maladroit dysfunction, and as time passes, repressed creative impulses manifest scorn, imaginatively characterized and robustly contorted, then transformed into bitter confrontation.

An old colleague (Laurence Fishburne as Paul Jellinek) explains how she's become a menace to society, with a particularly astute caricature, which cleverly outwits diagnoses and accusations, hits the nail on the head as it incisively were sir, observant synopses, regenerative calm.

But her husband's taken a more traditional route, and enlisted the aid of mainstream psychiatry, which does produce effective results at times, but is unfortunately ill-equipped for his wife's distemper.

It's a shame that he resorts to seeking outside help considering how strong their marriage appears earlier on in the film.

They're mutually supportive, they pleasantly talk to one another, they're both full of love for their daughter, they seem like a conjugal success.

But they've lost touch deep down, as some playful editing emphasizes, and even though they consistently converse, they do so without saying anything.

If they had just been talking to each other in the concurrent scenes.

Elgie's (Billy Crudup) 20 years of constant work have left him blind to his wife's grief, caused him to forget what she gave up long ago, that she needs outlets, projects, challenges.

Work.

Thankfully the film's quite level-headed even as locales switch to Antarctica.

It's a charming adventurous warm and friendly soul search that concentrates on understanding as it's refined by insightful youth.

Listening.

Where'd You Go, Bernadette? does air grievances as it diversifies Ms. Fox's (Cate Blanchett) portfolio, her exchanges with superkeen PTA neighbour Audrey (Kirsten Wiig) bearing disputatious fruit, her sharp dismissal of a curious admirer suggesting she could be somewhat less anti-social.

But she's totally not PTA, she isn't interested in textbook trajectories, she could likely write a book that no one would understand, with the same ingenious mischievousness found in Ulysses.

Categorically beyond expression, she's still devoted to her loving family, her daughter Bee's (Emma Nelson) sincerest bestie, she's grounded yet requires initiative.

Projects.

Their daughter teaches them to listen and because they're chill they hear what she's saying, finding fun working solutions down the road, realized with core resiliency.

The penguins and sea lions are worked in well.

They just kind of show up and aren't focused on with adoration.

Cutting back the rug to find the sprout is impressive.

As is Bernadette and Audrey's rapprochement.

A feel good family film that isn't cheesy or gross, Where'd You Go, Bernadette? remodels mature compassion.

It's a lot of fun too.

Can't wait to see it again.

Would have chosen a flavour instead of naming the dog Ice Cream (Inception). 😉

With Judy Greer (Dr. Kurtz [mainstream solutions are like Bernadette's Heart of Darkness?] and David Paymer (Jay Ross).

Boyhood

Cradling incalculable creative mismatched fluencies, irregularly dispatched as an artist comes into being, Richard Linklater's Boyhood follows a struggling family's progressive course for more than a decade, intermingling climactic catalysts and laid-back observations to serialize the traumatic and the beautiful, the courageous and the chill, helpless free-flowing resilient tenacity, a pervasive sense of wonder, enlightened, eiderdown.

Nice to see an asshole who isn't loveable.

What a strong mother (Patricia Arquette).

Responsibility and teaching are major factors, the children living with their mother, spending weekends with their father, encountering caring facilitators of learning along the way.

Dad (Ethan Hawke) steals a lot of scenes because he has less responsibility and can therefore spend more time being cool, but mom commands more respect, having to make extremely difficult choices as her stable partners turn into beasts.

I liked how the film's divided into different sections as the children age without seeming like it's divided at all; Boyhood has a seamless continuous flow which maturely reflects the passing of the years by not choosing to focus too intently on significant events, while still unreeling cogently enough to recognize their developmental importance.

This style also allows Linklater's characters to smoothly change and grow without constant reminders that they are changing and growing, which may have become tiresome.

Slacker

Fluidly connecting multiple random moments from a day in the life of Austin, Texas, Richard Linklater's Slacker staggeringly introduces manifold characters, themes, and situations, each negotiating its own peculiar qualification, before fading into the background and constructing the affect. Rituals and declarations and circumstance. Considerations and diversification and history. Walking the beat, tweaking the pace, adapting the rhythm, refocusing the plurality. It's about difference, non-financially motivated objectives, rugged potential, and flourishing happenstance. The consent found within this emancipated group has not been manufactured as I've come to understand the white picket fence phenomenon and it's refreshing to watch as its manifestations suggest, plead, and evaluate before fading and reappearing with a refurbished energetically relaxed focus. There's no climax, build-up, or predictable order of things, just a number of individualized reflections presented and compellingly displayed.